PDA

View Full Version : Gimmicky Game [peachy]



Pronounceable
2011-03-17, 08:02 PM
I was thinking on a new system some time ago. See me thinking there (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=182657).

Finally I got around to having enough stuff cobbled up that vaguely resembles a playable system. So here it is:

THE SIMU SYSTEM SIMU is for System I Made Up, creative i know

The core of the system is the gimmick(TM). We have one all important stat: STAMINA When you attack your enemy, you get a bit tired. The enemy also gets tired trying to defend against your attack. The aforementioned gimmick of SIMU is that every combatant has stamina and they’re all constantly losing it. Your aim is to push your opponent to defeat before you get there yourself, using various attack actions available to you.

When someone is out of stamina, they’re open to an actual hit. All the combat rounds are in fact the footwork, the swordwork and the whateverwork with which you’re trying to get to the position where you’ll manage to strike your enemy down. The only attack that actually hits someone is the last one.

On to the main course:
Every combatant has a number of attack actions and special actions available to them (plus a stamina score). Every attack action has a cost and an effect. More powerful attacks will have higher costs. Note that attacking costs will never knock you to below 1 stamina, so if there was an enemy that wasn’t attacking back, you could attack forever. But if it wasn’t gonna hit back, it wouldn’t have been an enemy so using your most powerful/expensive attack over and over will drop your stamina rapidly, leaving you much weaker against future attacks. The moment your stamina drops to 0 or less, you’re down.

The Basic Attack, which everything has, has a cost of 5 stamina and will drain 1d20 stamina from the enemy. It’s the fundamental upon which the system is built. When two enemies with equal stamina face off using only basic attacks, both will be losing (statistically) 15,5 stamina per round; and the one who attacked first will win in the end (if they both roll straight 10s).

Other attack actions also deal some kind of “damage” and maybe do something nifty in addition to “damage”.

There’s also the special actions. These are usable once during a battle and usually do something dramatic. The main difference between these and attacks is that there’s no rolling involved. Usually one combatant can only have one of these.

There’s 4 kinds of combatants in this system. Fodder, Mook, Opponent, Boss.
Fodder: They have only the basic attack and 1 stamina. Their main purpose is to be cut down in large numbers.
Mook: A mook is a variable sort. They can be mere fodder who can actually take the second hit, an enemy that’s almost but not quite strong as PCs, or anything in between. Typically they have 50 stamina and 2 attack actions (plus the everpresent basic attack).
Opponent: These typically have 100 stamina and 3 attack actions (plus the basic attack) AND a special action. Unlike other types they’re equivalent to PCs and PCs are actually classified as Opponents. They can have a bit more or less stamina, or maybe an extra attack, but nothing dramatic. We could also call these minibosses.
Boss: These are powerful enemies against which PCs have slim to none chance alone. They can have as much stamina, attack actions and special actions as necessary to pose a challenge to and/or to pwn PCs.

As stated, a PC will have 100 stamina, 3 attacks (plus basic) and 1 special action. At the end of battle, all stamina will be restored (assuming there’s time to rest for a little while, gauntlet style situations can and will happen at DM discretion).

One of the major aims of SIMU is to have as few rules as possible. Which means:

There’s no “build”. You’ll have everything you’ll ever have right at t=0, except the occasional plot item (stuff like the dragonbane arrow that’ll slay the dragon you puny monkey could never even hope to engage, the fetish which makes you immune to the demon’s aura of instantly lethal hellish flames so you can actually engage him in combat, the amulet which will reflect the evil sorcerer’s instant death spell back on him, the enchanted sword that can damage the animated stone statue...)

There’s no rules whatsoever for things outside of combat.

Weapons and armors do nothing (the boss will kill you with a broken bottle as easy as with the artifact hammer of DOOM and the fodder will accomplish squat whether unarmed or packing miniguns).

There’s no movement rules.

Attack order is always boss, PC, opponent, mook, fodder (unless it’s an ambush where victims will go last for the first round only).

There’s no such thing as ranged combat (unless both sides are using bows/slings/sniper rifles) and wizards don’t engage mundies, they obliterate them (unless it’s some schmuck apprentice that prolly counts as fodder whose basic attack is some sort of small flame/shock/goo).

Things like golems, oozes, demons, powerful undead, outsiders, dragons, aberrations, etc are so far above mere mortals it’s funny. Or more likely such things are imaginary tales to scare unruly children.

A general guideline for monstrous and magical things would be if something seems unlikely for an actual human being to engage in combat, it won't be engaged.
...

The meat and potatoes of SIMU is attack and special actions. Everything tries to be as abstract as possible, to be fluffed up by DM as needed. So these actions can be used in a boxing match, a magic duel between mages, a sniper battle, a tournament between knights, Bruce Lee vs Chuck Norris, sky's the limit...

Here is the attack action list (for now). A PC can have 3 of these. All are usable every round. Format is Name (stamina cost): damage, extra effect (if any)

Power Attack (15): 1d20+15.

Run Through (8): 1d20. If the roll is 11 or above will deal 1d20 to a second enemy.

Frenzied Attack (3d20): 3d20.

Flurry (2d20): 10. Damages all enemies.

Feint (10): 5. Next attack will deal double damage to feinted enemy.

Defense (5): 0. User will take 10 less damage from next attack.

Batter (25): 1d20+10. Enemy can’t attack next turn if this roll is 16 or higher.

Riposte (20): 5. Enemy’s next attack will deal the damage to itself instead.

Lethal Blow (25): 15. Will deal extra 3d20 damage if this roll is 19 or 20.

Lethal Blow (25): 2d20. Instantly defeats a mook class enemy.

Full Defense (15): 0. User will take no damage from next attack.


And here’s some generic special actions. These are powerful abilities that can potentially turn a battle. They don’t have a cost and are usable only once per battle. They should be somewhat logical for the character in question to have. A combatant can only have one of these (unless it’s a boss).

Battle Frenzy: Recover all stamina but every attack will be at double cost till the battle ends.

Second Chance: Recover half of all stamina.

Counterstrike: Reflect the hit back onto the attacker without taking any damage.

Vengeance: Deal the amount of damage you’ve taken to the enemy.

Willpower: Recover all stamina but can only use basic attack till battle ends.

Bloodlust: Recover stamina equal to the total damage you deal for 3 rounds.

Evasion: Take no damage for 3 rounds, including attack costs.

Whirlwind: Next attack action will deal damage to all enemies with no cost to user. If it’s an attack that already deals damage to multiple targets, that damage is doubled.

Last Stand: Take no damage and deal double of all damage back for 3 rounds. Your stamina will drop to 1 on 4th round.

...
Overall, this is still a system under construction. Remember that the point is to have tacticalish combats with very limited numbers and this is almost virtually a duel system with some strong emphasis on DM keeping things under control.

It’s open to criticism/feedback/enlightenment/plagiarism. Does Whirlwind+Frenzied Attack look like a win button? Is Batter completely broken? You got some cool idea for an attack or special? Have some idea for a new bunch of rules that should be added? Anything goes here.

Siosilvar
2011-03-18, 08:21 PM
Lethal Blow and Power Attack should have costs switched, assuming I'm parsing correctly.

Lethal Blow is 15 and a 10% chance of 30ish bonus damage, which averages 18.

Power Attack averages 25.

Pronounceable
2011-03-18, 10:48 PM
Lethal Blow is a problem. I see it now.
Fevered ramblings of a disorganized mind:
During actual gameplay, LB will average to 18 only if you can use it 10 times in a battle. Which is not gonna happen. If we assume enemy responds with Basic Attack (which is our ruler in such calculations) staminas will be either 65 vs 80 (%90 of the time), or 65 vs 50 (%10 of the time) on your next turn. This makes LB almost worse than Basic Attack. Also using LB 4th time is virtually impossible. That sort of thing makes all sorts of love with probabilities and numbers.
Having pondered a bit, I've decided that extra damage chance on attacks is a bad idea. Probabilities and numbers get funky. So we have a new LB now, and attack actions won't be getting damage "procs" now.

Lethal Blow (25): 2d20. Instantly defeats a mook class enemy.
...
One comment and an important hole has been patched. This here is a useful forum. Now if only there was more comments to be processed...

Psionic Dog
2011-03-24, 06:43 PM
I like it.

As Rule Light systems go this is one of the best I've seen, and it could potential make an excellent combat resolution system for "Free-Form" role playing. Bonus points for needing only a single die.


Combo Comments:
If using a Special uses up your attack for the round I don't see any trouble. If not see below.

Whirlwind+Frenzied Attack: This pretty much sweeps the floor of Minions, but more importantly giving a boss this ability could could cause a Total Party Kill before the Heroes ever act. Maybe. Still, unless the boss is supposed to have an aura of instantly lethal hellish flames the players could be upset by getting killed before making a single feeble futile attack. Also a problem if several opponents on a side all have this combo.

Evasion + Frenzied Attack: Impressive, but not game breaking if only one of the Players/Opponent does this, but if every player/opponent on a side takes the same combo at the same time that works up to an invulnerable game sweep at best. At worst your foes take 45 stamina drain if they all have full defense (or force them to use a special themselves).

Last Stand+ Frenzied/Flury: Double or nothing version of above. A Win button if your foes can't defend, a Lose button if they can. Not an problem if using a Special uses up your attack for the round, but otherwise you might wish to either restrict the combatant to only basic attacks or else reduce duration to 2 rounds.


Summery: With the possible exception of evasion I don't see any combo trouble unless ALL Opponents on a side use the same combo AND special activations can be made on the same turn as an attack. So, unless the players are collaborative munchkins or the DM is feeling cruel there shouldn't be a problem.

Suggestions:
Last Stand: Bosses and Opponents can never be dropped from 2+ stamina down to 0 (dead) stamina. The next to last blow always leaves them at 1-stamina, waiting for that final cinematic ending strike. Maybe all Bosses/Opponents have this, or maybe it's just a special.

Effort-Less Strike: The system could probably use a special attack that costs less stamina than the basic strike. Maybe, (3): 1d20/2 (round down). If Last Stand applies then Effortless strikes can't reduce your stamina to less than 2.

Retreat: (2d20): 0: the combatant runs away to fight another day. If the opposing force contains an Opponent or Boss, then the maneuver fails if an even number of Stamina drain is taken.

Split Evasion into Evade and Endurance.
Evade (special) - take no damage from attacks for 3 rounds.
Endurance (special) - ignore attack costs for 3 rounds.

Ajadea
2011-03-25, 02:33 AM
What about passive abilities?

Ideas [Passive]
Passive abilities can be taken multiple times.

-1 to the stamina cost of all attacks, including basic attacks. A stamina cost can never be negative.

Increase Stamina by +10.

Learn an extra Attack action. You cannot learn the same Attack twice.

The round you die, you may make an attack of any sort against the being who killed you. The being must be at least Opponent Rank. Making a dramatic speech is optional.

Or some other nice special abilities:

Repeat Tactic: Use a special ability you have already used this combat.